This summer will be a summer of upheaval in my physical spaces around me. We still have 4 weeks of classes before summer starts here, but the upheaval isn’t waiting for such things as academia.

The academic support center is moving into the library (so exciting! so many possibilities for closer collaboration!). All but 3 Reference & Instruction librarians are moving offices (some into offices that will be newly constructed because of the academic support center moving in and using space that currently has some of our offices in it). Our technical services department (which is having space carved out of it for the displaced reference librarians) is being completely torn up and redesigned. All the lab computers in the library are up for replacement. The stone on the outside of the reference area half of the building has to be torn off and replaced. The stairwell in the reference area has a crack in the wall and needs repair. We’re putting in some new moveable shelves. An area just in front of the library needs to be torn up and rebuilt.

Meanwhile at home, the city is tearing up my street and replacing water and sewer lines and such (and it has become clear that the city doesn’t quite know how any given house gets its water and sewer connection, so confusion abounds).

Any one of these things would make for an adventure, but all of it together? I’ve decided to choose to find everything related to all of this both exciting and hilarious.

Also, if there are any more potential disruptions, this summer is definitely the time to squeeze them in while we’re all helter skelter anyway. Strike while the iron is confused!

2 thoughts on “Summer of Construction”

I will be interested to hear how your collaboration with your academic support center progresses. We are experiencing (surprise to us!) the same thing this summer. Our tutoring center is being relocated – and I’m excited because during off hours I get to use it as an info lit classroom – and so we are about to travel down the same road. We are moving the reference desk down to the same area and so we shall see how things progress. I’m hoping for increased traffic and a lot more collaboration between our service points.

We have had a really great collaboration for the last several years (I help hire and train their tutors and they are invaluable sources of information about student needs for us). But we’re really looking forward to having them be in direct view of the reference desk. Seems like SO much potential for cross-referral and collaboration there.

One thing that we’ve done a lot of is emphasize the massive overlaps in our two missions.

Granted, it’s a lot of disruption to reconfigure most of our staff spaces and one of our public spaces over the course of the summer. All but about 5 of our staff will be ousted from offices for anywhere from 3 days to the whole summer during construction. But I sincerely believe it will be worth it in the end.